Renee’s Happy Hypnobabies Birth Experience
“The affirmation to the effect that ‘every twenty minutes of my birthing time will only feel like five minutes’ was 100% true! I fell asleep every single night in maintenance to the tracks and my inner mind soaked up everything it needed.”
Hypnobabies® – Natural Childbirth at its best!
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Ambrose Eli McKenzie-Meunier was born on his guess date, Thursday, October 12th at 10:47 pm. He was 8 lbs 2 oz and 21 inches long. Hypnobabies provided me with the tools for an empowering and exhilarating first birth and I am endlessly grateful to Kerry Tuschhoff and all the encouragement I received from the Hypno-moms Support group.
Ambrose, a Greek name meaning immortal, is our much anticipated rainbow/after infertility baby. He was born with his hand up by his face, just like I am in my newborn photos. He is the spitting image of me as a baby.
The doctors and nurses were in absolute awe of how everything progressed and how I handled it. My family doctor tried to hire our doula on the spot because of how easy it was for me. The affirmation to the effect that ‘every twenty minutes of my birthing time will only feel like five’ was 100% true! I fell asleep every single night in maintenance to the tracks and my inner mind soaked up everything it needed.
On my guess date, I went to the hospital for a Bio Physical Profile. After a few days of what I thought was round ligament pain, they wanted to check on the pain in case it was an infection – after a very, very long day waiting and my amniotic fluid being ever so slightly higher than they wanted, they did an internal check. I was entirely effaced, completely engaged, waters bulging and 3 cm dilated, so I’d been having idiosyncratic pressure waves for days and sleeping through them for the most part, as they slowed down during the day.
I had extreme SPD/PGP so I wasn’t up and moving around a lot and I truly did not think it could be my birthing time. We decided to go home, as I wanted to nap, eat and a little more time to prepare and to use my Hypnobabies tracks in comfort and peace. When we arrived home from the hospital around 4 pm, I quickly made a batch of ginger cookies to bring to the nurses. I noticed the waves now and they were regular but I think that is only because I’d been told what they were.
Took a bath and tried to eat but had no appetite. Was all set to nap (which is all I wanted all day!!) when my waters broke. Honestly, what a pleasant sensation that was! That was 6:45 pm. I called our doula and then called the hospital who wanted me to come back in, which I consented to. I really didn’t want to as I was set on napping. Pressure waves were only 15 seconds long now, instead of a minute, but we weren’t timing how far apart as it was clear it was my birthing time.
We arrived at the hospital at 8 pm. It was nice and quiet in triage and the nurse was enjoying my jokes. I had dilated to 5 cm. We took a walk around the ward to speed things up. My husband used my Hypnobabies hypnosis cues effectively and supported me during pressure waves. We all three went back to triage as I very much wanted to just be still and listen to my hypnosis tracks. Still joking, particularly about the warmth of the waters breaking being like my own internal Jacuzzi jet stream.
The nurse cracked jokes about making sure I let them know if I had the baby on my own. I then went completely internal on the stretcher in triage; using my Finger-Drop technique, listening to the Easy First Stage track on repeat and a lot of repeating my Peace cue. I got up to use the bathroom but had no concept of time by then.
Our doula suspected I’d been in transformation based on the sounds I’d been making and had to plead with the nurse, who had not checked on me at all because I was calm and totally still. At that point, I had to walk to the birthing suite which was quite far. Waves were still only 15 seconds but nearly constant. I used my open throat technique to keep as relaxed as I could, though walking was the absolute last thing I wanted to do but with my husband’s use of the Relax cue to deepen my hypnosis, we made it!
I walked into the bright birthing suite and absolutely had to push right then!! The family doctor who was on call for my clinic had not arrived yet. Apparently our doula ran screaming into the hallway and the on-call OB threw her papers on the ground and ran in. Lots of lights came on suddenly and I was being yelled at by a lot of people which obviously broke my hypnosis entirely.
I was confused and bewildered and at10 cm and the head was right there. If not for our doula, I’d have had the baby on my own in triage. I had no time to play my Pushing Baby Out track, because as far as the OB knew with no prior info available- this was an emergency. She screamed a lot and called me “doll”. I was not prepared to purple push, but I also had no way of stopping the train once it got going.
I pushed for less than ten minutes and there he was!! I had 3rd degree tearing so they actually offered me an epidural after the fact. I used my Deepening track instead semi-effectively while they stitched me up. It wasn’t my plan for a shouty OB to catch the baby but ah well. Already feeling mostly healed and excited to get more active, after a pregnancy spent with a lot of mobility issues. I am happy with my birth experience and so proud of myself and my husband for our collaborative effort in birthing our boy.
